klingler@triton.unm.edu (David Klingler) (01/20/91)
Question: Does anybody know of a 1.44 meg, 3 1/2" Floppy drive controller that
has built in ROM drivers and toggles pin 2 (of the drive cable) in
search of valid media?
Here is my problem: I have an old pre 3 1/2" compatible AT compatible (with
faster than normal DMA speed, I'm told). I have a DTK Floppy disk controller
that has built in ROM support and claimes to support 1.44 meg drives. I also
have a Toshiba 3 1/5" (model ND3561) drive. This drive has a jumper on it that
can let the state of pin 2 on the drive/controller connector select the density
of the media (1.44m vs 720k) INSTEAD OF using the notch sensor built into the
drive.
Right now, by changing a jumper on the drive and by jumpering the ROM BIOS
on the controller ON, I can format cheaper low density diskettes to 1.44 meg
with good luck. If however I want to read or write a 720K Disk, I have to
change a jumper on the drive, unjumper the ROM BIOS, and install the DOS 3.3
DRIVER.SYS program! (no other combination seems to work) In this mode however,
the drive is really slow, and it no longer reliably reads 1.44m disks (even
when I jumper the drive back forcing the 1.44m mode).
What I would like is something like how my 5 1/4" drive works now: You put
any density disk in, the controller toggles pin 2 trying to lock on to a
valid data stream, then reads the disk. This is reguardless of if there is
some tab knocked out of the corner of the disk or not. If I can't have this,
can I at least have a system that can do a 1.44m and a 720k format without
ripping the computer apart each time?
Thanks
Jimsteven_baldassarra@canrem.uucp (steven baldassarra) (01/23/91)
DK>Right now, by changing a jumper on the drive and by jumpering the ROM BIOS DK>on the controller ON, I can format cheaper low density diskettes to 1.44 meg DK>with good luck. If however I want to read or write a 720K Disk, I have to DK>change a jumper on the drive, unjumper the ROM BIOS, and install the DOS 3.3 DK>DRIVER.SYS program! (no other combination seems to work) In this mode however, DK>the drive is really slow, and it no longer reliably reads 1.44m disks (even DK>when I jumper the drive back forcing the 1.44m mode). Can you tell me which jumpers on the 3.5" drive did used? (A, B, C, or D???) Steven --- ~ DeLuxe}ab #6922 ~ - Do you remember Byston Well - -- Canada Remote Systems. Toronto, Ontario NorthAmeriNet Host